Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), employers are required to furnish to their employees a work place free from hazards likely to cause serious physical harm or death. To satisfy this requirement, employers must mark physical hazards, provide personal protective equipment, and teach employees how to perform tasks without accident. Similarly, OSHA requires employees to acquire the knowledge necessary to work safely.
From the view of an employer, it is often difficult to learn whether an employee is cognizant of the dangers associated with a given task or the precautions such dangers require. Of course, an employer could interrogate each employee before a new task is performed or a new work place is entered. Such a process, however, may be unnecessarily time consuming and destructive to employee morale. A need, therefore, exists for an indicator that may be easily used by an employee to alert his employer and fellow employees that the dangers of a particular task are understood and that appropriate action has and will be taken to minimize the possibility of harm.